As we take stock of the situation in the Americas several situations jump out. The first is the massive violations of women’s human rights in Honduras under the coup regime. In this Special Issue of the Updater we present the full report presented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Feministas en Resistencia was born on the same day as the coup, June 28, when a large number of women gathered at the home of the president to protest the coup. Although they were driven…
Bertha Cáceres is a leader of COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organization of Honduras) and the National Front Against the Coup d’etat. Interview with Bertha Cáceres, COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous…
Celsa Baldovinos knew there was a serious problem when only about an inch of water trickled from the irrigation hose. In the mountains of southern Guerrero state where Baldovinos and her husband Felipe Arreaga lived…

Last year, a journalist in Cancun–a Mayan word for “nest of serpents”–uncovered and wrote about an international ring of pedophilia. The leader, Jean Succar, was subsequently arrested and is in jail in the state of Arizona, awaiting extradition.
Like other mothers, Patricia Cervantes has heard the promises sung like empty lyrics by a chorus of presidents, governors, and law enforcement authorities. Their reassuring words vow to end impunity and find justice for the…
Nicaragua’s population policy has been set out in two documents prepared by two successive governments. The first of these two documents, the “national population policy” was issued in September 1996, toward the end of Violeta Chamorro’s government. Jointly prepared by UN agencies and various government ministries, the population itself was not consulted in designing the policy.
A major wave of layoffs in the once-thriving maquiladora industry of Ciudad Juárez has left thousands scrambling to make ends meet. Among the most vulnerable to this economic implosion are thousands of working-class women. As the maquiladora sector has contracted, Casa Amiga, the only domestic violence and rape crisis center in the city of nearly 2 million, has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of battered women coming in for help. Despite its overwhelming workload, the staff of Casa Amiga continues to provide much-needed services to women in Juárez, one day at a time, case by case.
Allegations of bungled investigations deepen, and Mexico re-invites the FBI onboard Activists See Mixed Signals as Juárez Murder Cases Go to OAS by Kent Paterson | October 21, 2002 Mixed reactions greeted Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martínez”s…